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Pet owners with a dog with cancer can now join clinical trials to fight the disease. A Texas based registry for pets with cancer is now national. Director and veterinary surgeon Teresa Fossum, DVM, says the National Veterinary Cancer Registry allows dogs to join clinical trials of new cancer drugs benefiting both them ... and people.

"Dogs get these cancers naturally, they live in the same environment as people, they are exposed to the same carcinogens and they likely have the same kind of genetic mutations."

She says mice don't get cancer naturally it's implanted in them ... so they are poorer test models.

"They (dogs) are a far betterand more predictive model than a mouse is."

Fossum says it's not hard to convince dog owners to join the registry ... many will fly long distances to a clinical trial to save the family pet.

"Not only do they want to benefit that animal, they want to benefit their next pet and other people's pets ... and if they can benefit people, they feel that that is a win-win."